There's a prophetic scene in the 1993 action flick "Demolition Man" in which cryogenically frozen cop Sylvester Stallone awakens to an unrecognizable America in the year 2032. "Hold it!" he cries in disbelief. "The Schwarzenegger Library?"

"Yes. Even though he was not born in this country, his popularity at the time caused the 61st Amendment . . ."

As of today, in the considered reasoning of the U.S. Constitution, Arnold Schwarzenegger still has a birth defect. It's one that the California's governor-elect shares with Michigan's Democratic governor, Jennifer Granholm, two current Cabinet members, two recent secretaries of state, 700 Medal of Honor recipients and more than 12.5 million other U.S. citizens.

All were born on foreign soil, making them unqualified for the presidency under Article II of the Constitution, which requires presidents be "natural born citizen." As a self-proclaimed nation of immigrants, we say give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free -- but not those yearning to live in the White House.

Of course, a number of people think what's defective is the constitutional requirement itself. They are lending momentum to pending proposals in Congress to amend away what they call "an un-American anachronism. " Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, is sponsoring what some have nicknamed "The Ahnuld Amendment" -- a proposal to make an immigrant eligible for the presidency after 20 years of U.S. citizenship, conveniently coinciding with the Austrian-born Schwarzenegger's 20th anniversary as a U.S. citizen.

Schwarzenegger and Hatch are friends -- the actor has even campaigned for him in Utah -- but the senator emphasizes he didn't sponsor the legislation with anyone particular in mind.

Actually, the idea predates the muscleman actor's political ascendancy. In recent years it has accumulated a diverse core of co-sponsors in the House, including Republican Rep. Darrell Issa of San Diego County and Democratic Reps.

adopted from South Korea and raised here since infancy, is denied the promise that any American kid -- including her -- could someday grow up to be president.

Yet another prophetic twist: At a Capitol Hill hearing on the proposal a few years ago, historian Forrest McDonald of the University of Alabama was being far-fetched when he testified, "I can tell you why you don't want to do this in two words: Arnold Schwarzenegger."

In fact, American history is littered with examples of people of potential presidential timber who were told, in effect, they need not apply because of their foreign birth. And experts say the forces that have kept this provision in the Constitution for more than 200 years are likely to keep it there for many more, largely because the obstacles to amendments are so formidable. They require a swell of public support, the votes of two-thirds of the House and Senate and ratification by three-fourths of the state legislatures. No easy trick, as supporters of the euthanized Equal Rights Amendment can attest.

So how did this provision get written into the Constitution to begin with?

"Remember that we were then a country of only 5 million people stretched 2,000 miles from north to south and about 1,100 miles east to west. Our borders were more than permeable. They didn't exist," said Tim Blessing, director of the Penn State Presidential Performance Study. "Each state defined citizenship in its own way.

"And if just one state naturalized somebody for whatever reason, even a bribe, that's chaos. Any scoundrel could get in. The founding fathers knew all about chaos. They knew all about scoundrels. And they wanted to protect the new country from both."

There were rumors that members of Britain's royal family might have designs on the presidency. It also sent shivers down the spines of the new Americans to witness how Austria, Prussia and Russia infiltrated Poland and carved up that country for themselves. Delegates to the Constitutional Convention discussed the need for what John Jay termed "a strong check to the admission of foreigners into the administration of our national government."

Only one among the founding fathers had been born on foreign soil: the controversial Alexander Hamilton, a scrappy native of Barbados who was a key aide to Gen. George Washington. It's debatable whether his colleagues had him in mind when they included a clause in the Constitution that "grandfathered in" as eligible for the presidency people who were U.S. citizens at the time of the Constitution's adoption regardless of their birthplace.

Even so, suspicions percolated: John Adams dismissed Hamilton as a "bastard" and a "foreigner." Whatever presidential aspirations he may have had ended with his death in a duel with Aaron Burr, ensuring that Hamilton would be known to modern America not as a former president but as the likeness on a $10 bill.

As the fragile new country began to flourish, it caught the eye of ambitious leaders abroad. Napoleon responded to defeat by asking the British to transfer him to the United States. Had they agreed, only the Constitution would have stood in the way of his seeking executive power here.

The presidency was off-limits to Carl Schurz, the 1880s progressive Republican who was an ardent abolitionist, a Union army commander, negotiator for President Abraham Lincoln, U.S. senator and secretary of the interior. It was Schurz who coined the slogan. "My country, right or wrong. When right, to be kept right, when wrong, to be put right." But his presidential aspirations were in vain because he hailed from Cologne, Germany.

Ditto for Andrew Carnegie, the steel magnate who became the richest man in the world and then gave away millions for public libraries and other social reforms. He had been born into a poor family of damask weavers in Scotland. And ditto for Joseph Pulitzer, who left his native Hungary for the Union Army and became one of America's most prominent newspapermen.

The restriction even emerged as a potential stumbling block in 1968 for George Romney, the Michigan governor running for president. Romney had been born in Mexico to U.S. missionaries, and while his U.S. citizenship was automatic, it was unclear whether he fit the definition of "natural-born" under Article II. It was never tested: Romney's candidacy became irrelevant when he made the ill-advised declaration that the Johnson administration had "brainwashed" him into supporting the war in Vietnam.

Although the secretary of state ranks fourth in the line of presidential succession, some who have held the post were automatically excluded. Among them was Henry Kissinger, who was 15 when he left Germany for the United States and rose to become this country's premier diplomat and secretary of state under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. Also on the excluded list is Madeleine Albright, born in Czechoslovakia, who, in the Clinton administration, became the first woman secretary of state.

In the current Bush Cabinet, Labor Secretary Elaine Chao and Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Mel Martinez are immigrants and thus disqualified to be president.

"Because of its symbolic power, the right to run for president is important even for people who have no intention to run themselves," argued John Yinger, an economist and father of two foreign-born adopted children. He maintains the prohibition "undermines the standing of some citizens and is therefore an assault on the principle of equal rights."

Most mainstream politicians seem to agree, although some suspect that immigrants might face a conflict of interest in issues dealing with their homeland.

"One must wonder, is the GOP so hard up for decent candidates for public office that they have to begin importing them?" asked James Clymer, chairman of the Constitutional Party National Committee. "Does Mr. Hatch expect us to believe that any foreign power -- whether a nation-state or terrorist group -- would not try to take advantage of such a loophole?"

The United States is not alone in grappling with this question. Three years ago, Mexico amended its constitution to allow Mexican-born children of foreign-born parents to run for its highest office, enabling the election of President Vicente Fox. His mother was born in Spain.

Michigan's Granholm, a rising Democratic star who emigrated from Canada, supports the amendment while disavowing any personal desire for the presidency.

Likewise, Schwarzenegger told CNN interviewer Larry King: "I don't have those intentions, to be honest with you." Still, robust ambition is his hallmark. And three of the last five governors of California have sought the presidency: Pete Wilson, Jerry Brown and, of course, Ronald Reagan.

"When all's said and done, people are hard-pressed to think of any serious argument in the abstract not to make the change. Electing a monarchist is pretty implausible today," said Jonathan Entin, professor of constitutional law and politics at Case Western Reserve University. "Still the overwhelming number of proposals to amend the Constitution fail, mostly because of inertia.

"The prospects may depend on Schwarzenegger. I suppose if he does well as governor, that will increase the odds for change. If his time as governor turns out to be contentious, it will have the opposite effect. I think (change) is unlikely, but I don't think the chances are zero by any means."

Others are more skeptical. "How do you sell Schwarzenegger in North Dakota? You don't," said Blessing. He notes that virtually all of the nation's presidents have long pedigrees and deep roots in American soil, some stretching back to the Mayflower. The closest we got to an immigrant president in the last century was Reagan, whose paternal grandfather was born in Ireland.

A foreign-born U.S. president? "I would say inconceivable, but historians like to put in weasel words," said Blessing. "Almost inconceivable."